This weekend brings us the Final Four in San Antonio as a big-time Saturday of college basketball awaits. For just the second time in the history of the NCAA Tournament, all four Final Four teams were No. 1 seeds, joining 2008 as the only other year for that to have occurred.
Some think its a sign that college basketball will never be the same as this year lacked a traditional Cinderella story, but what is hard to argue is that a great weekend of basketball should be upon us.
Florida vs. Auburn and Duke vs. Houston. Four powerhouses all vying for the ever-so-difficult national championship.
Oddly enough, the only other time all four No. 1 seeds reached the Final Four, the championship round was also played in San Antonio. That was of course in 2008 when Kansas won it all.
A quick look back at that memorable Final Four.
2008 Final Four: The Teams
If there was a betting favorite entering the Final Four in 2008, it was Memphis who was led by Derrick Rose. Memphis won a record 38 games that regular season, a record Kentucky would tie in both 2012 and 2015, as John Calipari coached all three of those squads.
Memphis took down a UCLA team that returned to the Final Four after falling to Florida in the previous season’s Final Four. Despite having Kevin Love, the Bruins couldn’t find enough offense to keep up with Memphis, falling to the Tigers 78-63.
Kansas jumped out to a hot start against North Carolina in the 2008 Final Four’s Saturday nightcap, leading 44-28 at halftime and never looking back. It was a legacy game of sorts for Roy Williams as the longtime Jayhawks head coach, now coaching North Carolina, was eliminated by his former team and head coach Bill Self, 84-66.
Mario Chalmers’ Championship Moment
Monday night’s national championship game lived upto the anticipation and then more. Powerhouses Memphis and Kansas exchanged blows wtih Kansas holding a halftime lead, but a 10-0 Memphis second half run giving the Tigers a seven point advantage with just over five minutes to play. Three minutes later the Jayhawks trailed by nine as time was running out on their championship dreams.
Thanks to a slew of missed free throws by Memphis, Kansas rallied late to put itself in position for a miracle. Enter Mario Chalmers, with a little help from Rose, to save Kansas’ season and send the game to overtime.
Kansas continued its hot streak as overtime started, scoring the first six points of the extra frame. In what was college basketball’s first overtime game in a national championship in 11 years at that point, Kansas rose to the occasion late in regulation to secure it’s third national title of the NCAA Tournament era and fifth overall.
2024-25 may have been a disappointing season for Kansas basketball by its incredibly high standards, but hopefully the three games between No. 1 seeds to come the next few days send college basketball into the off-season with a bang.
And because we’re talking 2008, why not take a moment and enjoy the 2008 edition of One Shining Moment following the Kansas title.
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